The present invention relates to a collator system having a sheet feeding error display function.
There has conventionally been known a collator system comprising a sheet collating device for collating a plurality of printed sheets in order of pages and a sheet loading device for receiving a collated sheet bundle sequentially discharged from the sheet collating device.
FIG. 10 is a schematic side view showing an example of such a collator system. A sheet collating device 1 comprises sheet supply shelves 2a to 2h having 8 stages in a longitudinal direction. A predetermined number of sheets having the same page are housed in each of the sheet supply shelves 2a to 2h. Sheet feeding rollers 3a to 3h are provided on the sheet feeding side of each of the sheet supply shelves 2a to 2h. Sheets P1 to P8 discharged from the sheet supply shelves 2a to 2h by means of the sheet feeding rollers 3a to 3h are fed to a longitudinal delivery belt 6 through longitudinal delivery rollers 4a to 4h.
The longitudinal delivery belt 6 is driven by driving rollers 5a and 5b for the longitudinal delivery belt which are provided at intervals in a vertical direction. The sheets fed from the sheet supply shelves 2a to 2h to the longitudinal delivery belt 6 are sequentially stacked and collated in order of pages while they are being delivered downward in the vertical direction. Thus, a sheet bundle for one volume is formed.
A horizontal and transverse delivery belt 8 is provided in a position spaced from the lower end of the longitudinal delivery belt 6. The transverse delivery belt 8 is driven by driving rollers 7a and 7b for the transverse delivery belt provided at an interval in the horizontal direction.
The collated sheet bundle is transferred from the lower end of the longitudinal delivery belt 6 to the transverse delivery belt 8 through a guide plate 10. A sheet discharging roller 9a is provided in an end on the sheet discharging port 11 side of the transverse delivery belt 8. The sheet bundle is sent into the sheet discharging port 11 through the sheet discharging roller 9a. The reference numeral 9b denotes a delivery roller for delivering the sheet bundle supplied from another sheet collating device to the transverse delivery belt 8 when a plurality of sheet collating devices are coupled for use. The sheet bundle discharged from the discharge port 11 is supplied to the sheet loading device 21 through a coupling plate 13.
For the sheet supply shelves 2a to 2h, sensors 12a to 12h are provided in sheet feeding paths for the sheets P1 to P8 between the sheet feeding rollers 3a to 3h and the longitudinal delivery rollers 4a to 4h. The sensors 12a to 12h are made of light transmission type sensors, for example. Detection signals of the sensors 12a to 12h are input to a controller 14. The detection signals are used for deciding sheet feeding errors (missing sheets, double sheets and the like). A sensor for detecting multiple sheets is provided on each of the sheet supply shelves 2a to 2h in the vicinity of the sheet feeding rollers 3a to 3h. The signal of the sensor is also input to the controller 14. The controller 14 serves to output a control signal to each of drive mechanisms such as the sheet feeding rollers 3a to 3h of the sheet collating device, and to control these drive mechanisms.
A display unit 16 is mounted in a position on the side face of the sheet collating device 1 or the like that an operator can see, and serves to display sheet feeding errors of the sheet supply shelves 2a to 2h. The display unit 16 is connected to the controller 14 by means of a cable 15. FIG. 11 is a plan view showing an example of the display unit 16. The display unit 16 has a base 16a. A first display section 16b indicative of the contents of the sheet feeding errors by marks is provided on the base 16a. In the drawing, (I), (II) and (III) are marks indicating multiple sheets, missing sheets and double sheets, respectively.
The reference numeral 16c denotes a second display section for displaying the sheet supply shelves by number from the top in order, and the reference numerals 16d to 16f denote a display lamp using a light emitting diode (LED) or the like. The display lamps 16d to 16f are provided in a matrix corresponding to the first display section 16b and the second display section 16c. In the display unit 16 shown in FIG. 11, a display lamp X is turned on to indicate that sheet feeding errors of the multiple sheets occur in a seventh sheet supply shelf.
In the conventional collator system, thus, the sheet feeding error display unit of each sheet supply shelf requires a large number of display lamps. Consequently, there has been a problem in that a manufacturing cost is increased and a large space is also greatly required for the installation of the display unit. In particular, in the case where a plurality of sheet collating devices are coupled for use in order to collate a sheet bundle having a large number of pages, the display lamp having the above-mentioned structure is required for each sheet collating device. Therefore, the cost is further increased. Consequently, an increase in the size of the display unit cannot be avoided.